Entertainment

The Hobbit – A Review

37 Comments

Last Friday I decided to go to see the new movie The Hobbit. I had seen all 3 of the Lord of the Rings movies, enjoyed each of them, but truthfully had no idea what any of it was about. In my mind, I thought it was only about a guy called a hobbit who had to get a ring to a volcano to melt it; all that other stuff was confusing. And I had never read any of the books; I tried, but just wasn’t interested.

The_Hobbit

Also, this movie had gotten fairly maudlin reviews from many professional reviewers who griped about its length, griped about how it was shot (48 fps, or frames per second, versus the normal 24 fps for 3D), griped about what they said reminded them of Star Wars Phantom Menace… they didn’t like it. They liked Ian McKellen and Martin Freeman and nothing else.

The story of The Hobbit is how Bilbo Baggins, the uncle of LOTR’s hero Frodo, comes to discover and own the ring that ends up having to be destroyed later. It also talks about the adventure he goes on, along with 14 other individuals which includes Gandolf the Grey, who’s also in the LOTR movies, to help liberate the Dwarf Kingdom of Erebor that had been taken over by a dragon named Smaug. The second story arc is that the current exiled king of Erebor, Thorin Oakenshield, had thought he killed Azog, a top leader of Orcs, and it turns out that not only is he not dead but he wants revenge; who wouldn’t?

And the ring… it’s almost a subplot, to the extent that if you hadn’t seen any of the LOTR movies and were seeing this movie for the first time without knowing anything else you’d think it was just a plot point that was setting up the next movie, since this will be a 3 movie arc. That’s saved until the last 35 minutes of the movie, which is about 2 hours and 45 minutes long. We know how important it is, and it seems that Gandolf knows something’s different near the end, but the rest of us… if we didn’t have foresight into what was coming we’d miss it.

You know what? I thoroughly enjoyed this movie and knew exactly what was going on at every step along the way. Probably because this movie explains how they got to the LOTR movies and books, some things started to fall in place for me. The faster filming of frames made the movie lighter than traditional 3D, and that was nice. The one problem was that every once in awhile it looked like the background was moving when the action stopped; that was freaky.

The part some critics hated was the comedy part. There were a lot of funny parts in this movie that were interspersed with the serious and action parts. I loved that, especially early on when Bilbo is trying to figure out what’s going on. Frankly, I think all of us would react the same way to suddenly having lots of creatures in the house that aren’t like you and you don’t know why, and they’re eating your food and drinking your wine.

Even the scenes with Gollum were both intense and funny and, well, weirdly sick because I’d never gotten the real sense of just how dangerous he was and could be in the 3 LOTR movies, which might seem strange to some of you who saw those movies. It was well done here; frankly, I think this entire movie was well done.

Overall I had a great time. I didn’t notice how long the movie was while watching it. The critics said no action takes place until the last 40 minutes of the movie; I wonder what they were watching. There are great back stories here and lots of fun. Visually it’s stunning, and I’ll just say that it was fun seeing rock people fighting as opposed to Transformers, which I also enjoyed. This is a lot of fun, with no bad language and yet I’m still not sure that young kids should see this. But the teens will love it, the movie’s going to be successful, and I have no qualms about recommending it.

Go have fun!
 

37 thoughts on “The Hobbit – A Review”

  1. “…I thought it was only about a guy called a hobbit who had to get a ring to a volcano to melt it;”

    LOL

    I might have to go check out the Hobbit.

    It’s crazy how all the movies these days are sequels. What’s the deal Hollywood, Come on man.

    1. Jacko, in this case it’s a prequel, but I know what you mean. In this case I don’t mind because the books are out there and in my mind they probably should have started with this story.

  2. I am not a big fan of trilogy, I like it, I enjoyed it, but this is one time event. Let’s just say that there are movies that I like to watch several times and “Lord of the rings” is not one of them. However I will check the Hobbit, usually you write good movie reviews and I followed your advice about the previous one “John Carter”, was quite good.

    1. Thanks Carl. This one was a lot of fun and I like that I understood it better than the previous trilogy. Time went fast for me; that’s always the best example of a good movie.

      1. As one of my best friends used to say, the magician could just teleport them or put them on giant dove, this comment was related to trilogy. Definitely I will watch it during the weekend with family.

      2. Actually Carl, if one compares even a little bit of it with Harry Potter one realizes that the magician, or wizard to be more accurate, doesn’t have that kind of power at all. The teleporting at least; as it concerns the flying, well, since in the new movie that’s done with eagles, I believe, it does make one wonder why he didn’t just do that with Frodo, unless it’s because the other side had flying dragons. lol

  3. Honestly, I don’t agree with you, I’ve seen it last weekend and I’ve found it quite boring…The only thing I can remember that they’ve only wandered almost 3hours…and sometimes I have got the feeling that I would like to go asleep…

    1. Barbi you’re allowed to disagree. lol I think it depends on what each person’s expectations are and the style of movie they enjoy. For me, this was a lot of fun, and I loved how the characters interacted with each other. For others… well, the critics thought part of it lagged so there you are.

  4. Mitch,
    Thanks for the review. I am not a movie freak and haven’t watched any of the LOTR movies. However, I have this goal of watching all time Top 100 movies on the IMDB list someday. Yesterday, I watched the 1941 classic ‘Citizen Kane’ and it was a great movie. Hope to watch some great movies from the past in the coming years.

    PS: Somehow, I am lagging behind and hence first need to watch old movies before attempting new lol

    1. Wow Ajith, just saw Citizen Kane eh? lol Well, you’re a young guy, and truthfully I didn’t see it until I was in my mid 20’s; I’d never even heard of it until then. There are a lot of movies on that list I haven’t seen, probably at the top being Casablanca, and that’s strange since I’ve always loved Ingrid Bergman’s work. One of these days. 🙂

  5. Tolkein is a favourite with British influenced people of my generation. My siblings and I grew up with Hobbit and the LOR and read them to our children as bed time stories. I am in fact very affecrtionately called Gondolf by the younger generation. I was the grey but now the white!

    I intend seeing it in the next few days.

    1. Rummuser, I think I went right to white, which suits me just fine I suppose. lol Different cultures have different likes and influences, and truthfully I grew up being influenced by the cartoons of my generation, as my parents influenced other behaviors in me. I don’t even know most of the famous fairy tales that others know; one of these days perhaps. I hope you enjoy the movie.

  6. The Hobbit was the first book. The prequel to the trilogy those in the movie trilogy the did flash back to how Gollum came to have the ring. No references to The Hobbit much accept how Frodo gets the ring from Bilbo.

    I read all the books so I could follow the storylines which, as movies often do, stray far from the book’s anyway. Understandable as the mediums are very different as are the intended audiences.

    BTW, your summary of the first three movies is correct. The main purpose was to destroy the ring. All the other stuff happened around it and in the end because of it.

    1. Scott, visually stunning but I was really confused by it all. I got this one and it’s nice that the ring’s been introduced. It’ll be interesting to see how the second movie comes about since at some point some of the lore of the ring, if you will, has to come up so it blends in with what we’ve previously seen.

  7. I’m going to have to see this movie. It sounds great. I read The Hobbit many, many years ago, and I loved it. I’ve actually read it more than once, as I did with the LOTR. For the life of me I don’t know why they didn’t produce the Hobbit first, and the the LOTR. That way it would have made a lot more sense to those who had not read the books.

  8. I loved the Lord of the Ring series back then, so I think I will love this movie as well. Especially when it is about my favourite character. I really enjoyed your review as well. Thanks.

  9. Same with Ajith – haven’t tried to watch any of the full episode of the ‘Lord of the Rings’. I had seen some snaps of that movies but I am not really interested on it. Maybe will try to watch it some other time as you have mentioned in your post that there are some funny part. I’ll be checking it out!)

    Anyway, I have already updated my site. Thanks for the comments/suggestion. That was a great help.

  10. I love your review! And I love The Hobbit and Tolkien! I think that this was one of the best prequels ever made. I don’t see why some didn’t like it…

  11. The Hobbit actually impressed me greatly. However, it’s also stretched out, maybe even too long. I’m curious about how they’ll handle 3 movies from one book.

  12. This is a damn good review. I have seen the movie yesterday and I must say it is everything I expected and much more. Although I was a bit disappointed that the ring got such a small bit of the action but, since it is in three pieces, I have nothing against it.

    1. Judy, I think it was a nice introduction. Since I knew nothing about the story I’m thinking if I hadn’t seen the first 3 I wouldn’t even know that there was more story to the ring.

  13. Nice review. I’ve yet to see The Hobbit, but this pretty much confirms my hunch about the movie itself. Thanks.

  14. Peter Jackson didn’t particularly want to direct The Hobbit, and I didn’t particularly want to be bored to tears, but there we both were, fulfilling what could only be described as some sort of cinematic murder-suicide pact

  15. I love your review! And I love The Hobbit and Tolkien! I think that this was one of the best prequels ever made. I don’t see why some didn’t like it…

  16. I’m looking forward to seeing this when it comes onto DVD but won’t bother to see it in the cinema (means travelling to a large city from where we live and I’m not a great cinema fan anymore – too loud and too bright for my eyes these days). The fact that he’s done it in three parts and each part is three hours long is staggering! I saw all three parts of the Lord of the Rings and loved it (apart from the battle scenes which tend to bore me) but the thing about the books that he based them on is that Lord of the Rings was written for adults and The Hobbit was written for children. LOTR is a hellishly long 3 part book. The Hobbit is a short novel, very short. Most films of it could deal with the whole of it in less than an hour! But this is Peter Jackson… ah well!

    I’m not surprised you didn’t read the books and weren’t interested to do so, Mitch. I don’t think they’d be quite ‘you’! LOTR trilogy in the movie though is very faithful to the book, so you’re not really missing much. No need to read a book that’s been faithfully translated into film.

    By the way, if I don’t get a chance later – I hope you have a happy Christmas and a happy and healthy new year. All the best.

    1. Thanks Val. For Hobbit, supposedly there were lots of extra notes and appendices Tolkien added after the fact that Jackson decided to put into play for the movies, which is why it’s going to be 3 movies long. Hey, I don’t know; I just know I enjoyed this one and understood it. 🙂 I hope you’re having a wonderful holiday as well.

  17. Peter Jackson is the most talented director in Hollywood now, Lord of the rings was unbelievable, I’m a big fan of the trilogy, he projected the same way as Tolkien has written in the book. I’m going to watch this movie, I’m late but I will never miss it.

  19. The movie is too long! It’s beautiful, but gets boring because of the length. It should have been done in two parts.

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